Life with baby Hughie

Hillary's brother always craved her attention. He finally got it

By Margaret Carlson

So now scandal engulfs another Rodham, the genial, decent one,
Hillary's younger brother, known as Hughie. A near constant
presence in the Clintons' lives since he and brother Tony tagged
along on their 1975 honeymoon, Hughie has a complicated
relationship with his sister. Growing up, the little warmth their
father Hugh Rodham Sr. had to give went primarily to Hillary. She
was the Warrior Princess of Oak Park, Ill., beating up the boys
in the neighborhood, always the captain when her brothers played
"spaceship," less afraid, by her telling, of the scary flying
monkeys in The Wizard of Oz than Baby Hughie, who tried to hide
under his seat at a Chicago movie theater.

Even before the pardon scandal, the relationship between brother
and sister as adults could be strained. It was as if Hughie had
never grown out of his grandiose and childlike schemes while
Hillary became a real-life Warrior Princess. As Hughie bounced
from Peace Corps volunteer to public defender to a quixotic run
for the Florida Senate in 1994--getting only 30% of the vote--he
looked slightly hapless and more dependent on his sister's good
graces. During the second term, Hugh spent ever more time on the
third floor of the White House, accumulating so much stuff that
when the Clintons vacated the residence in January, he had nearly
as many boxes to move as Chelsea. (He probably would have had
more, but he also spent weekends at a Coral Gables, Fla., home he
shares with his wife Maria Arias, a Cuban-American real estate
lawyer.)

With Hugh under her roof, Hillary as First Lady continued to be
hall monitor, trying to get Hugh to quit playing Upwords, the
President's favorite board game, until all hours of the night.
She imposed a strict Dean Ornish menu on the household--salmon,
chicken, blueberries and bran--one that left everyone but her and
Chelsea hungry. Hugh was known to steal off to McDonald's or
organize family outings from Camp David to the Cozy Restaurant in
nearby Thurmont, Md., for a fix of fries. As time went on, in
ever larger sweat clothes and golf sweaters bearing the White
House seal, the more he wanted Hillary's approval, the less
likely he was to get it.

Hillary was, of course, right to be wary. From the start, the
Rodham "boys," as Hugh and Tony are called, were hoping to take
advantage of their sister's success, as if, a friend said, "they
didn't know the Washington Post existed." They got off to a bad
start during the first Inaugural when they solicited donations
from a corporation for a party at the Renaissance Mayflower
Hotel. Still, they came up short, and the Democratic National
Committee had to pick up much of the tab. On his own, Tony, a
former private eye in Miami, tried to land an Indian gaming
license in New Jersey and a contract in China to clean the air.
In 1993 he became a mid-level "constituency outreach" coordinator
at the D.N.C., sent around the country to attend picnics, wave in
parades and play golf. In 1994 he married Senator Barbara Boxer's
daughter Nicole in the first Rose Garden wedding since Tricia
Nixon's. The marriage was short and troubled, and the two are
still embroiled in a custody dispute over their son Zachary, now
five, who frequently stays with the Clintons. He sat in the
Senate Gallery next to the President during Hillary's
swearing-in.

But while Tony's schemes were dubious, Hugh sprinkled his with a
hint of fantasy. During impeachment, a friend recalls, Hugh
pictured himself as the one who, for once, could come to
Hillary's rescue from the vast right-wing conspiracy that she
alluded to in a TV interview amid the Lewinsky scandal. (Hughie
would have been better advised to rescue his sister from her
husband, but his dealings with the President were usually always
warmer than with her.) Like Ralph Kramden, he saw himself
suddenly striking it rich on one scheme or another, proudly
telling potential clients that they could reach him at "the
House." He got hired by antitobacco and antigun lawyers hoping
he could deliver the political muscle to prevail. He didn't.

The two brothers nearly created an international incident when
they tried to launch a $118 million hazelnut-export business in
the former Soviet republic of Georgia by hooking up with a local
chieftain. The chieftain was then the sworn enemy of U.S. ally
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, who told the White House
he'd give the U.S. a day to get the Rodhams out of the country.
To his credit, Hugh cooled it on the hazelnuts. But not Tony, who
kept trying to get the President's blessing, calling during
Clinton's last week every five minutes from a Washington hotel
where he was holed up with a group of Russian moguls, trying to
organize at least a photo op to prove his clout. (Tony got his
moguls their presidential moment--more accurately, their
ex-presidential moment--as Clinton dispensed handshakes at Andrews
Air Force Base moments after the Bush Inaugural and just before
he flew to New York.)

But as the Clinton era wound down, Hugh too was getting more
desperate to make the killing that had not materialized in eight
years of hustling. Taking and making whispered phone calls in the
solarium on the third floor of the White House, Hugh was clearly
up to something. That wasn't surprising. He always was: "Can you
get me Oscar tickets?" "I want to go to the Super Bowl." "How
about a lift on Air Force One?" And so, as Clinton popped in and
out of the movie State and Main, which was being screened for the
First Family, fielding last-minute pleas for various pardons,
Hugh had decided not to attend, to make sure his were on track.
He'd succeed in winning the ugliest pardons of all. He hit the
jackpot, $400,000, for saving two worthless cheats, Carlos
Vignali, who conspired to transport 800 lbs. of cocaine to the
sons and daughters of Minneapolis, Minn., and the tax dodger
Glenn Braswell, a snake-oil salesman peddling cures for cellulite
and baldness.

It defies credulity to think that as Hughie was brokering the
deal in the President's house, right under his nose, Bill Clinton
thought his brother-in-law was working pro bono. Hughie was
affable enough to give you the shirt off his back, but such a
penny pincher, he wouldn't pick up the check at IHOP. And who
helps scum for free, anyway? What other reason could Clinton have
had for letting these awful people off than that his
brother-in-law wanted it so badly?

Oh, brothers. Hugh isn't the only family member to disgrace a
President (not even the only one in the Clinton family). Donald
Nixon had shady business dealings. Billy Carter lobbied for Libya
and peddled Billy Beer. The hard-drinking Sam Houston Johnson was
practically kept under White House arrest by L.B.J. Roger
Clinton, a mediocre musician and sometime actor (playing "Mayor
Bubba" in Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings), lived up to his
bad-brother billing recently by abusing a nightclub bouncer and
getting arrested for drunk driving--all after receiving a
presidential pardon himself. He also submitted his own list of
six pardon candidates to his brother; none made it to the final
list. The only presidential relative to really benefit from his
blood ties to the Oval Office is its current occupant.

But by carrying water for a drug trafficker, Hugh has seen Roger
and raised him a truckload of cocaine. At her press conference
after Hugh's payment was exposed, Hillary, used to separating
herself from her husband's recklessness, separated herself from
her brother's, doing it so harshly that a friend said, if Hughie
were watching, he would be "suicidal." More than the money, what
he has always wanted was her praise. At the press conference, she
called her campaign treasurer, involved in securing two minor
pardons, a "fine lawyer and a fine man." She claimed neither when
referring to Hughie. Only once did she say she loved him, while
repeating, like a well-rehearsed talking point, how "disappointed
and disturbed" she was. She boasted about not having spoken to
Hughie since the story broke.

I was with her until then, but having two brothers of my own, I
know you can make the point that your sibling is wrong and still
open your arms to him. What she did may be smart in the ruthless
world of Washington, but not in the lasting one of family. You
simply can't treat your kin as just another piece of roadkill.
We've always known Hillary is smart. Her main problem is, we
don't know if she's human. She may get out of the Hughie mess
unscathed, but at the cost of confirming that being a Senator is
more important than being a sister.